Experienced trio back for Boks' Paris Test

The experienced trio of Willie le Roux, Faf de Klerk and Franco Mostert are back in the Springbok team for the Test against France in Paris.

The match in the French capital is South Africa’s second fixture of the 2018 Castle Lager Outgoing Tour to the United Kingdom and France and kicks off at 22h05 (SA time).

The inclusion of Le Roux, De Klerk and Mostert – with close to 100 Test caps between them – are the only changes announced by Rassie Erasmus, the SA Rugby Director of Rugby, to the run-on team when he confirmed the Springbok match-23 on Thursday.

Le Roux takes over the No 15 duties from Damian Willemse while De Klerk comes in at scrumhalf to replace Ivan van Zyl, with the rest of the backline kept unchanged.

Mostert replaces Eben Etzebeth, who sustained a foot injury in last weekend’s 12-11 loss to England at Twickenham, in the only change to the pack.

With the availability of the Boks’ European-based players, Erasmus also announced three changes to the replacements. Vincent Koch (prop), Francois Louw (loose forward) and Cheslin Kolbe (utility back) are set to provide impact off the bench.

“It’s good to have the experienced players back in the starting team for France,” said Erasmus.

“I thought Damian and Ivan did very well last week against England but you need as much experience as possible playing away from home. We are building squad depth for the Rugby World Cup and they will be back in the mix as the tour progresses.”

Etzebeth was not considered because of the injury he picked up against the English, which forced him to leave the field early at Twickenham.

“We believe it would be better not to rush Eben back as we still have two Tests left on the tour after the match against France,” said Erasmus.

“Franco has started in eight of our 11 Tests this year and he starts with Pieter-Steph du Toit, who is obviously also a good option to move to loose forward later in the match.”

The Bok mentor described France as a dangerous side, and said the home side will provide the Springboks with formidable opposition on Saturday.

“The French are very physical and skilful, and we will have to be good on defence and also be disciplined,” said Erasmus.

“The conditions here in the northern hemisphere demand a different approach and while we created a lot of opportunities last week we have to better with our execution.”

Franco Mostert replaces the injured Eben Etzebeth in the second row against France

The total Test caps for the Springbok starting line-up is 444. There are 191 caps in the backline with 253 caps amongst the forwards. On the bench there are a further 149 caps.

The average caps per player in the backline are 27, the forwards are 32 while the players on the bench average 19. The average age of the starting 15 is 26.

Approaching milestones:

Handré Pollard needs one point to reach 300 career points in Test rugby. Should he score 14 points or more in this Test, he will surpass Naas Botha’s career record of 312 points and will move up to fourth position on the all-time point scoring list for South Africa.